Princess
by buttercupbella
Summary: AU. The best day of Sumire Shouda's life wasn't when she fell in love with Natsume Hyuuga - it was when she had fallen out of it with him. Sequel to Highway 340. One-shot.


**|author****'s note| **nope, still not giving up on the caps game. (screw grammar for a week.)

**dedicated to **everyone who read **highway 340. **i suggest that you read that first because it's kind of difficult to understand this without viewing the prequel.

* * *

**Princess**

The best day of Sumire Shouda's life wasn't when she fell in love with Natsume Hyuuga - it was when she had fallen out of it with him.

* * *

At three years old, Sumire wanted to be a princess, because it was every girl's dream to sit on a velvet throne and be crowned with a diamond-studded tiara. It wasn't enough that she enjoyed Ferris Wheel rides because she felt free and invincible and lucky to have her family - for her, there was something missing in her tale. Sumire imagined that her knee-length dress was a shimmering ballgown, and she twirled in front of the mirror, waltzing and gliding across the floor all by herself.

Most of all, she wanted to be a princess not for the expensive clothes, not for the castles, and not for the glitzy glamour.

Sumire Shouda wanted a happy-ever-after.

At five years old, Sumire's parents were divorced. One, rainy night, thunder crashed and bombarded the Shouda house, bellowing in sync with the shouts and accusations and poundings of the wall. Sumire wasn't there to watch the whole thing happen, but she was certain that there were pictures of her father's secretary scattered all over the broken wooden desk. A lovely woman with emerald eyes rushed to the door with her suitcases, knelt in front of Sumire, and stroked her short ebony hair.

"_I'm sorry, dear," _her mom said, grazing her tear-stained cheeks with the back of her hand. "_Mommy has to leave for now, okay?_"

"_But why?_"

Sumire's mother stood up and walked under the downpour. She smiled before she got into her car. "_Don't worry, Sumire, you'll always be our princess._"

Not anymore.

At eight years old, Sumire fell in love. After that fateful stormy night, she was abandoned by her father because of her emerald eyes, nothing more, nothing less. ("_You remind me too much of her._" Sumire wanted to bite back, "_Of course I'll always remind you of her._") She was given to a 'friend' without second thought - like princesses before their happy-ever-afters, she was reduced to being a maid for a family that she didn't even know of.

Not that her dad's friend completely despised her - the eleven-year old Sumire and the said friend ("_Mr. Yukihara,_" he said. "_Call me Mr. Yukihara, Sumire._") made a 'deal' that if Sumire was to do the household chores, Mr. Yukihara would provide her needs and send her to school. Sumire immediately agreed.

It must have been her first stroke of luck, because Sumire met Natsume Hyuuga in her class. The rest of the students shunned him because he looked like he wasn't human (when it came to emotions, he definitely wasn't one). His crimson eyes threw daggers at everyone's direction. Everyone was scared of Natsume.

Except Sumire.

She had always been fascinated with the crimson-eyed boy. He didn't participate in graded recitations but still emerged as the most outstanding student of the batch. Silently, he worked on advanced mathematical problems, not bothering to listen to the teacher's instructions before the test.

Natsume didn't look like a prince, but Sumire was fine with that.

At fifteen years old, Sumire got rejected. Ever since the beginning of her admiration for Natsume, she rode a rusty bicycle and followed Natsume's sleek limousine. All of her afternoons were spent in front of a marble-white mansion, and she rarely caught Natsume venturing out of the tall gates on his own. The entire property was secured with bodyguards, after all.

Every day, Sumire rode her bicycle, trailed after a black limousine, sat on the pavement in front of the Hyuuga mansion (sometimes she brought snacks), watched the surveillance cameras move, and went home, satisfied about the fact that Natsume was safe inside his home.

The crimson-eyed boy knew about Sumire's actions, and finally he snapped on the very same day that Sumire decided to confess.

"_Stop following me, Shouda._"

"_But I-_"

"_You know very well that I am in no mood to argue with idiots. Go home and find somebody else to fantasize about._"

"_I...I like you, Natsume._"

Natsume only smirked and, before pulling his tinted window up, said, "_I know. But that doesn't mean I like you, too._"

Sumire gripped the handles of her bike until her knuckles turned white, and she heard Natsume speak again.

"_Oh, one more thing, Shouda. I don't like you. Not even one bit._"

At eighteen years old, Sumire met Mikan Sakura. The ebony-haired girl had come to despise Natsume for all his harsh words, but she couldn't bring herself to forget that she's _still _in love with him. It wasn't her fault that as the years went by, Natsume only became more esteemed than he already was, and he wasn't the same introverted genius anymore. He was recognized as the son of a CEO, as a dean's lister in his university, as one of the most eligible bachelors in Japan.

Sumire, on the other hand, was stuck working in a fast-food store, desperately attempting to balance her studies and Mr. Yukihara's health.

Afternoons were never the most ideal time to see Natsume Hyuuga, especially when he was walking into a crowded fast-food store with the paparazzi stalking him and Mikan Sakura by his side.

"_Is she your girlfriend, Mr. Hyuuga?_"

Natsume avoided the microphones and cameras shoved in his way, and merely slapped bills on the counter. "_Two hamburgers, one Diet Coke, and one Sprite. Make it quick_."

He didn't notice Sumire busily attending to the needs of her customer in the next counter. She seemed distracted by the sight of a girl with hazel eyes and soothing voice.

"_Natsume, I'll just wait in the car, okay?_"

"_Fine, Polka._"

Before she left, the hazel-eyed girl slapped Natsume's arm and covered her beet-red cheeks. Sumire was already interested in _this _girl - sure, she was pretty, but she didn't have the kind of beauty that stole people's breaths away, that mesmerized even the most emotionless of men, that was enough to make Natsume Hyuuga fall in love with her.

Perhaps it was just the jealousy boiling, but Sumire was sure that she had a thousand reasons to say that she was better than Natsume's girl.

The flashes of cameras continued to blind Natsume.

"_Natsume, was the girl named Mikan Sakura?_"

"_Mr. Hyuuga, do you have any plans of proposing to her? Is she the daughter of a businessman who's currently having a partnership with your-"_

_"**Goddamnit,**"_ Natsume growled and swiped the bag of food and drinks from the counter. "_Who the hell do you expect to be my girlfriend? Her?_"

Natsume pointed his index finger towards a random person, which was, coincidentally, Sumire. The well-known boy swallowed in distaste as he widened his eyes at the sight of his former admirer. "_Mikan Sakura is my girlfriend. That's all you need to know._"

With that, Natsume stormed out of the store (while customers still gaped at the incident), the horde of reporters and cameramen dashing after him. Sumire's hands shook at her sides, but the tremor wasn't caused by anger or the like.

She was still hurt, after all this time.

Sumire headed home crying just as she did three years ago, but this time, Mr. Yukihara wasn't there to take her into his arms and assure her that everything was going to be okay, that there were better men out there. Instead, Mr. Yukihara lay on his bed, unable to move his legs.

He didn't have the capacity to pay for an operation, and even if he did, he would die soon, anyway. ALS wasn't something that could be cured, and as much of an optimist Mr. Yukihara was, he knew that there wasn't anything he could still do.

Sumire believed otherwise, thus her afternoon shifts at the fast-food store. She still had a lifetime of debt to pay.

"_What's the matter, Sumire?_" Mr. Yukihara tried to prop himself on his elbows but failed. "_Why are you crying, child?__"_

_"I saw Natsume with his girlfriend, Mikan Sakura._"

The ebony-haired girl thought that her pseudo-father was going to console her over and over again, singing _pain, pain go away, _but Mr. Yukihara only asked, "_Mikan Sakura, you say?_"

Sumire vehemently nodded.

Mr. Yukihara exhaled and stared at the ceiling for a few heartbeats. "_Sumire, I have to tell you something._"

"_What is it, Dad?_"

(She cringed, knowing that the name by which she called him wasn't the least bit genuine.)

"_I was divorced before your father asked me to take care of you, and Mikan is my daughter._"

The only thing Sumire could register was that the statement hurt more than it should.

At twenty three years old, Sumire had encountered the most climactic part of her whole life. Mr. Yukihara had completely given up to his disease; Sumire found the orange apartment by the convenience store; she stumbled upon the disco bar and saw Natsume wasting his life bottle by bottle; and Kokoro Yome entered her world.

As soon as Sumire saw the sign 'Highway 340' on the stretching road, she realized that her journey was going to have a lot of twists and turns.

Sumire couldn't bear to dwell in Mr. Yukihara's abode for any longer, so she sold it and used the profit to pay for her school dues. At first, the money was enough for her apartment rent, but after she graduated with a course in medicine, she found it running out. She wasn't exactly one of the brightest students in her year, so she was instantly turned down by the recruitment agency in the city hospital.

The grocery store didn't give her a chance, either. The manager told her that the establishment couldn't afford to employ more people.

Disco bar it was, then.

The place was as repulsive as she first thought. Sumire wanted to be one of those who threw the bottles into the air (but she was a bit clumsy, so it was a No). She also tried to be one of the waitresses (same reason: she couldn't handle brittle kitchenware without breaking them). She was down to her last option.

A prostitute.

_No, _she screamed. She had a degree in medicine, for heaven's sake. Her body wasn't something that she'd give away for financial purposes.

But Sumire Shouda was desperate, more desperate than anyone could have ever been.

That was when she spotted _him. _He was taking heavy swigs of beer and slinging his arm over unknown girls who were wearing nothing but skimpy outfits.

"_Natsume?_"

The man in question looked up with half-lidded eyes. He appeared to be so..._broken. _Helpless. While other people would have said _that's what you get, _Sumire only took Natsume's trembling hand in her own and guided him up. "_Are you okay?_"

Thankfully, Natsume still had a crystal-clear memory even when he was drunk. "_Shouda, what are you doing here?_"

Sumire kept quiet and requested the crimson-eyed man to point out his car. It was to their benefit that Sumire knew the basics of driving, so she pushed Natsume to the inside of his high-class vehicle and brought him to the familiar marble-white mansion. It surprised her to see that the bodyguards were no longer there, and so were the countless surveillance cameras that lined the gates.

The mansion was empty. Sumire dragged Natsume to the first room she could find. When the bachelor was already settled in bed, his hand shot up and caught Sumire's wrist -

Warm, lazy lips were on stiff ones -

And the rest of the night was a blur, until Sumire woke up to a throbbing pain in her chest and saw a pile of money on the bedside table.

_Thanks for last night._

_-N.H._

For what seemed like the hundredth time, Sumire's body was wracked with heaves and sobs and every ounce of unrequited emotions that she had stacked up on all these years. She gathered the blankets around her as if protecting herself from an invisible threat, but she remembered Natsume's vulnerable expression in the previous night.

_He appeared to be so...broken._

Sumire went to the bar then on, putting on her eyeliner, glossing her lips, and wearing skimpy outfits - all for the man who never cared. Later in the evenings, Natsume Hyuuga screamed a woman's name, and Sumire didn't complain, not even one bit, because she was content with being in second place.

She didn't do it for the money.

She did it for Natsume.

What she didn't expect was that she had grown tired of fixing somebody beyond repair. She felt worthless, because no matter how much Natsume kissed her to the depths of hell, it was still Mikan's name which he murmured in her ear.

Kokoro Yome was a man of great timing, that Sumire knew.

It happened like a passing whirlwind - Koko bowing down in his graceful manner, Koko punching Natsume, Koko taking her on a Maroon 5 joyride.

She admitted to herself that Koko made her forget about Natsume for a while, but she made the grave mistake of sharing a sliver of her past. Strangers weren't supposed to know personal matters.

If that was the case, Sumire could say that Koko wasn't such a stranger after all.

The 'friendly' date was the final straw for Sumire's mixed feelings. It was supposed to be friendly with no intimacy involved (Sumire herself stated that) but a myriad of realizations struck Sumire in the same way that the lightning struck her house when she was just five years old.

The best day of Sumire Shouda's life wasn't when she fell in love with Natsume Hyuuga - it was when she had fallen out of it with him.

High up in the air, Sumire kissed Koko not because it was her personal redemption.

It was because she was beginning to fall in love with him instead.

She felt like a princess - crowned not with a diamond-studded tiara, but a circlet of hope; sitting not on a velvet throne, but on a Ferris wheel seat; bestowed not with a filthy rich prince, but a man who loved her for who she was.

Her fairy tale still seemed wrong and out-of-place, though.

* * *

Sumire Shouda wipes a tear from the corners of her eyes as she watches her own daughter twirl in her dress like the princess she has always dreamed of becoming. The front lawn is covered with cardboard thrones and aluminum foil crowns, and the little girl who plays in a world of her own jogs over to her ebony-haired mother.

"Mommy, what's wrong?" the little girl scrunches her nose and cups Sumire's cheeks in her tiny hands.

Sumire smiles and her emerald eyes shine through their glassy surface. "I'm alright, honey. I just miss your dad so much."

"Me too," her daughter rubs her palm against Sumire's damp face. "But Daddy said that he'll always watch over us, right?"

The both of them grin at each other and at the picture frame on the center table.

* * *

Before the wedding bells could continue to create heavenly noises, Sumire dropped her bouquet after the wedding vows, smiled with tears flowing down her cheeks, and twirled, like the princess she always dreamed of becoming, to the direction opposite to the altar. Pulling her white dress up, she ran out of the church and scanned the perimeter for a certain man.

He wasn't here anymore.

That didn't stop her from searching. Days after the seemingly humiliating incident, Sumire was roaming around the city and finally concluded her journey when she saw a familiar man chugging beer down his throat, sobbing in the disco bar where many of her firsts had happened.

When the man looked up, he was just as broken as everyone else was - but instead of half-lidded eyes, he greeted Sumire with a spark igniting in his irises. He wasn't dressed in his white suit anymore, but he pulled a pink peony from his coat and smiled in the midst of his drunken stupor.

"_Roses are so over-rated nowadays._"

* * *

"Of course," Sumire whispers against the light-brown mane of her little girl. "Your Daddy's Kokoro Yome, after all."

**end**

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**note **so yes, i told you not to read this before highway 340 because of perfectly logical reasons (for me, that is). thanks for reading and let's share all the wub :")


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